You can't censor away extremism or any other problem • Hacker News Board

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#811

Post by closeparen » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 3:54 AM UTC

Frondo wrote: post #800

closeparen wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today Dr. Seuss is hate speech. Tomorrow Dr. Seuss apologia will be hate speech. Even from the perspective that this is progress, it’s very fast progress. Today’s white supremacists are last week’s liberals who didn’t update their opinions fast enough.

Dr Seuss isn't hate speech, there are a few racist caricatures in a few of his books, that the owners have stopped printing. A few private platforms have stopped selling those books -- not all of them, neither all platforms nor books. You can still find those books, you just won't be able to buy official reprints from the copyright holder. I am not sure where you'll draw the line if you insist that copyright holders…

Racist caricatures are right down the middle of any definition of hate speech I’ve seen.

The production of an instant moral consensus - so that everyone, all at once, decides freely that it would be incompatible with their values to do what they were doing yesterday - is an exercise of a kind of power. “It’s just private entities doing what they want to do” doesn’t mitigate that.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#812

Post by lliamander » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 4:01 AM UTC

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #758

lliamander wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EDIT: the rain of downvotes is telling as usual. You suggest that people subject to social stigma and censure should "maybe ask [themselves] some questions". Do you think the reaction you are receiving should cause you to question your own position?

> Do you think the reaction you are receiving should cause you to question your own position? If there was a clear accusation of hate speech on my behalf I would certainly do. Would you?

No, of course not. Why should I be disposed to take an accusation of hate speech at face value? I certainly don't have any hate in my heart for people. If I say something, it's because I think it is (or at least may be) true. Whether that might potentially in some abstract way cause others to feel hate is frankly not my business.

Now, if I'm wrong about some point of fact, I am more than willing to be corrected. And that's all it should take.

If someone feels the need to go beyond merely arguing my claim is false and use the accusation of hate speech, I'm going to seriously doubt that person is intellectually serious or acting in good faith.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#813

Post by nyczomg » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 4:04 AM UTC

orthecreedence wrote: post #735

JPKab wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are describing a core concept called liberalism. As a liberal myself, we've become increasingly unwelcome in the United States' only viable left of center political party. We've allowed regressive, illiberal religious fanatics to take over our party. Just like the Republicans allowed regressive, illiberal religious fanatics to take over their party in the 80s. In both cases, they were considered useful idiots to…

I've been fairly silent about all this the past few years. It's interesting because I come from the perspective of economic left (libertarian communism/socialism) and seeing the people around me fall pray to this obsession with identity hasn't been easy. More recently I've starting speaking out about it more, because it's getting to the point where it's effectively McCarthy-era. I do have some thoughts on your post t…

Love that last paragraph. Maybe we’ll have some lemonade after all these lemons...

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#814

Post by lliamander » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 4:15 AM UTC

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #764

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #762

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is accusing you of hate speech. The downvotes are accusing you of being wrong , though. You might question your position, not because it might be hateful, but because it might be wrong.

Give me some good reasons for believing that a "slightly bad opinion" and "hate speech" can be easily confused and I'll be ready to rethink my position. Questioning our own positions is the opposite of bigotry, after all.

Your claim was that even the simple accusation of "hate speech" should be taken at face value and be cause for introspection, seemingly regardless of the circumstances.

Now here you are asking for reasons before you reevaluate your own position when we claim you are in error. Do you not see the hypocrisy?

You are welcome to expect arguments before you change your mind. You can be "innocent until proven guilty". That's all the rest of us ask. Telling others to assume fault when you yourself do not is a rather poor way to argue.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#815

Post by jimbokun » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 4:16 AM UTC

AshWolfy wrote: post #774

jimbokun wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This guy just plays further into the tropes that the original video was mocking.

In what way?

Doubling down on the idea that both racists and wokists center everything around race and are unable to think about people as individuals outside of shallow racial generalizations.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#816

Post by manuelaljibes » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 4:19 AM UTC

DubiousPusher wrote: post #696

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you cannot censor away opinions, if suppression of ideas doesn't work then why in exactly these kinds of articles do people bemoan it as dangerous? Because instead of treating the disease (terrible dehumanizing ideologies) it treats the symptom (them talking about it). Instead of a fire, it creates a bomb. >It worked for centuries to maintain familial control and enforce sexual monoculture in many countries. Info…

> In the short term. Determining the status quo isn't up to censors. I don't agree. Before WWII, America had a very small standing army. It was practically an American value that the country demilitarized after each war. But from 1900 through WWI and especially through WWII there was a deliberate effort by the government and elites to change that. In just 40 years America went from barely militarized to having a larg…

Have you considered the possibility that the experience of WWI and WWII changed their model of the world? Maybe the public felt that another war could break out and therefore deemed necessary to have a strong military to protect themselves

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#817

Post by lliamander » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 4:49 AM UTC

tablespoon wrote: post #749

lliamander wrote: post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For instance, "first post" competitions would clearly be unacceptable speech here, yet I doubt anyone in good faith would actually call such posts hate speech. No, but if you think "hate speech" is a clear and definite term with no room for abuse you are deluding yourself. > Also, downvotes are an opaque mechanism. The person I responded to clearly knew why he was being downvoted. He presented an unsophisticated an…

> No, but if you think "hate speech" is a clear and definite term with no room for abuse you are deluding yourself. That's actually not an uncommon situation for a term, such is human language. Most terms have fairly established meanings with a bit of fuzziness around the edges. That doesn't mean they're meaningless, arbitrary, or not useful. > The person I responded to clearly knew why he was being downvoted. He pre…

Those are several points that I would love to argue with you about, but I'm afraid we would be drifting from the main point.

The other commenter was insisting others take certain accusations or forms of disapproval at face value, yet was hypocritically quite defensive when challenged and down-voted.

The idea that "hate speech" accusations form some sort of special category where they should be taken at face value is absurd.

It was a rhetorical attempt to bully someone into submission that failed because most people here recognized it for what it was. And then he whined about people not approving.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#818

Post by penetraitor69 » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 5:42 AM UTC

nindalf wrote: post #220

akvadrako wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN doesn't have very strong moderation. The things people got kicked off twitter and Facebook for saying would be allowed here, at least if they were on topic and phrased politely.

> HN doesn't have very strong moderation FWIW, I agree. But the people who are shadow banned for trivial offences would probably be writing replies to your comment about this ... if they knew they were shadow banned that is. And we wouldn't be able to read it either way, so it's a moot point. Just one data point, but one of my friends has been shadow banned from HN for years and he never even knew that he was. Say wh…

The lack of transparency is really unfortunate. It makes this whole thread sorta ironic: there's a lot of hate in this thread (deserved or not) directed at larger social media sites, but at least those ones aren't both removing peoples' content and deliberately wasting their time by pretending to accept their posts.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#819

Post by penetraitor69 » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 5:51 AM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #380

nindalf wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal isn't to drive extremism to extinction, it's to make it niche so the mainstream doesn't get infected with it.

Too late. I mean, sure, it’s nice if it isn’t in your face all the time. I’m glad Google’s SafeSearch exists. But keeping people who are actually curious from finding things is much harder than that, and there are a lot of curious teenagers.

Agreed. But at the same time, a key part of normalization is constant exposure; people who are exposed to extreme views incessantly are less likely to recognize them as "extreme" than those who only see them once in a blue moon, and see them get moderated when they do.

This isn't even specific to extremist views or even politics in general; in all parts of life, from the foods people eat, to the religion they practice, to the music they enjoy: people will consider "normal" that which they constantly perceive.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#820

Post by edrxty » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 7:07 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #769

edrxty wrote: post #520

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Beyond being objectively untrue, this doesn't even come close to attempting to answer the question.

The direct answer is too complex to argue in a HN thread. "More healthcare" is a trade off. At some point real resources have to be taken from somewhere and put into healthcare. There is no limit to how many resources can be put into healthcare, so more healthcare means less of something else. The premise of the question is that more=better, without acknowledging more=less of something else. The argument over what ge…

An answer to the question would be an example of a policy and an example of when said policy "really hurt and isolated a significant population"

It's pretty straightforward, everything else is frantic hand waving.